Did you hear? I joined a Rock Band. You didn’t know? Neither do they!

Let me “esplain….”

About a month ago, I moved into an “artist sanctuary”. All my neighbors are artists. The first day, as I was unpacking… breaking down cardboard boxes in the still quiet, echoing, and mostly empty loft… I heard the (not so feint) sounds of drums coming from the place next door. I knew that the former occupant of my unit had been a musician. I didn’t realize the next door neighbor was one as well.

My first thought was something like, “Oh, GREAT! Seriously? How often is THIS going to happen?”

Then I listened a bit, and thought, “Hey, he’s actually pretty good. At least I don’t live next door to a 5 year old studying violin…” I pushed through my initial, expected (for a 50-ish Mom type) reaction and decided to embrace this interesting development. I grabbed my rattle and joined him. I admit, I had a blast. He stopped playing shortly thereafter.

I didn’t hear the neighbor again for several weeks. When the music started again, the BAND had come over! Now there was a guitar and a piano player going as well. I enjoyed the concert. It only lasted about 45 minutes and they were done before my old lady bed time. I didn’t even get a chance to bust out the rattle. Darn.

Tonight the boys really needed to practice. They worked on one song over and over and over… through three episodes of Madam Secretary to be exact (with headphones) and they just weren’t getting it quite right. Clearly, what was missing was the rattle…

I observed my internal process. I started out a little annoyed. “Oh, it’s going to be a concert night…great.” Then eased into, “Hey, that’s a pretty good one, it’s coming along…” to “Seriously guys? Can’t we work on something else tonight?” to “I wonder if I went over and rang the doorbell what would happen?”

That’s when I knew it was time to dance— to EMBRACE the Chaos. To meet it. To DEVOUR IT. To BECOME it. Resistance (Trekkies represent) IS futile. No, I was not going to be the “get off my lawn” fuddy duddy old lady next door. I am better than that. I have endured 3 years living next door to ROOSTERS and burning cane, I am NOT going to be deterred by a back beat and tricky guitar hook.

I picked up the rattle… I started in softly at first to catch the beat. Then started to go with a little double-time bit. At first I stopped when they stopped because I was being all stealth with it. After several rounds, I found myself playing my own little rattle solo… just taunting them to pick back up the beat. Several more rounds in, I let out an exultant “Woooooo!” and a rather flourishing rattle finish, if I do say so myself. I was KILLING IT!

I killed it so good. They stopped within about 10 minutes.

Besides the delicious humor of this scene, there is another point to my story. I have been dancing with my Shadow lately. I have been looking at things that I am tempted to call “bad” or “damaged” or “wrong” and asking them straight up “What is the Gift of this?” Who am I now because of this thing, person, event, situation, etc. that I didn’t want? I am learning that I would not be most of the awesome things I am without the crappy things I had to heal and overcome.

For one thing, I wouldn’t be the kind of person who dances with a rattle and whoops with the band playing next door… or rode a 6-foot unicycle, or designed a logo while sitting on a Mayan pyramid, or sold everything she owned and moved to Maui, or wrote a book, or had the guts to do a whole lotta things most people just think about while complaining that other people should stop disturbing THEIR TV time.

I am inviting my clients to dance with their Shadows. I have started offering healing sessions that access my intuition and symbolic sight and help you identify the stuff that is tripping you up and transform it and transmute it so that you can dance with what used to make you angry, confused, or afraid.

Check out the page called Healer to find out more. If you’re lucky, I’ll bring my rattle.